


Salut d’Amour

by cgreabell



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, I love both classical music, So here we are, and dumb nerds in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 10:31:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16303496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgreabell/pseuds/cgreabell
Summary: Lup is in love with Barry; she knows that for sure. And for almost 30 cycles, she’s had no idea what to do with those feelings. But here at the Legato Conservatory, she might finally have an idea.





	Salut d’Amour

Lup has known how she feels about Barry for 30 cycles now. 30 years she's been in love with him, and 30 years she's said nothing about it.

She's justified staying silent countless times in countless ways - "we are literally stuck together for the foreseeable future what if he says no I can't do that and then still be here" - but 30 years is 29 years and almost 12 months too long for her, for Lup, to be silent about how she feels.

So, at the Legato Conservatory, she sees an opportunity. 

She knows how talented an artist Lucretia is, how amazing with words Davenport is, and knows they will work alone. 

She knows Merle and knows that he would probably try to rope somebody into some ridiculous project but would ultimately come up with something entirely unique on his own.

She knows Magnus is still a bit too proud to admit he needs help with something so small, and so won't seek her out.

She knows Taako like she knows her own heart, and she knows Taako is perfect and will create something amazing.

And, she knows Barry. She knows that Barry, that adorable little science nerd, will be too terrified to present something artistic to literally the entire world. She's seen Barry do some amazing things, but she knows that Barry is a researcher. He prefers facts and knowledge, and Lup knows he can wield them with devastating effect. But, she's willing to wager that in a world of art, Barry is maybe a little out of place.

So, she proposes that they work together. She suggests they do a duet, something simple. She can play violin and Barry can play the piano. Learning to play piano isn't too difficult, she reasons, and when you think about it, written music is a lot like a mathematical equation. Each of them contain an undeniable truth when fully written out, a truth that can be expressed in many different forms, but one singular truth.

The relief she expects to find, and does find, in Barry's eyes is mixed with something she doesn't expect. She can't quite put her finger on it but the closest word she can find is determination. There's a light in his eyes, a fire, that she can feel, and when she sees it, she's blushing without even knowing why.

They start practicing right away. Barry's a very quick learner and masters piano in a relatively short time. Once he's at least capable of playing the piano in a way that isn't embarrassing, he asks if Lup had a song in mind to perform.

Lup has had a song in mind since she asked Barry to play with her, a song from their home reality. A simple, elegant violin piano duet, titled "Salut D'Amour," literally Love's Greeting. It is a very overt sign, and Lup is incredibly nervous to say it.

But she does. She keeps the coolest and most casual composure, like this piece is the most obvious choice in the world for the two of them to play, reports the title like someone reporting the weather on a day with perfectly mild temperature, and waits for Barry to respond.

The simple and quiet "okay" she gets is not what she wants. But she doesn't push it today. Instead, they start practicing.

Rehearsals start very simple, teaching Barry how to play the song, teaching him how to listen to Lup while he's playing, how to keep track of her and make sure they're on the same page. 

One of the most difficult parts of performing a musical duet, vocal, instrumental, or otherwise, is staying in sync with your partner. Even if your parts perfectly overlap and are just harmonies, you still need to be able to read your partner, to match their flow and their energy, to listen to them and be able to respond while sounding simultaneously like you've practiced the piece to the point of perfection and like the two of you are simply playing off each other. Lup is worried that Barry won't be able to achieve this level of unity in their performance and for a while, she's right. 

At first she gets frustrated. She knows that he knows the piece, but he still isn't in sync with her, often speeding past her playing chords pages ahead of where she is. Then one day, shortly before the live performance, the two of them stressed and irritated out of their minds, she takes his sheet music away and tells him to just listen to her, to not worry about how the piece is supposed to sound and to just listen and play.

Almost immediately, it works. Barry is reading her and she's reading him and they are playing perfectly in sync. The first time they play all the way through the song without sheet music, both of them are silent apart from their quiet breathing. Lup has turned entirely red, a solid sheet of crimson from the bottom of her chin to the tops of her ears. And she knows that she’s red and she hates it, but more than the fact that she can’t control the blood vessels in her own face, more than the fact that this adorable nerd makes her, Lup, completely lose her composure, she hates that she can’t look at Barry and see if maybe he’s red too. Finally, after a silence that has filled the space between her and Barry for just a moment too long like an in-law at a holiday dinner, Lup coughs out a “well that was alright I think.” She barely manages to hear Barry mumble an agreement before she is out of the room.

They spend the day before the performance completely alone in the woods. By this point, everybody has figured out that Barry and Lup have been working on something together, so nobody pays much attention when the two of them slip quietly out of the ship early in the morning. Barry wanted to spend today practicing, but Lup called him a nerd and told him the previous night that if they worked too hard before they'd just tire themselves out and sound worse for the performance.

Barry has some, potentially very valid, concerns about this response, but Lup waves them off and he lets her.

They watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain containing what they think is the Light, and they don't say much of anything. They spend the rest of the morning sitting and watching the clouds, and they continue to not say much of anything. They spend the early afternoon walking through beautiful groves of pines and cedars, and they stay silent. This silence, though, is completely unrelated to the silence of the night before. Where that old silence was hot, oppressive, and distinctly red in an unpleasant way, this silence is calm, refreshing, and somehow green. That night, as they're getting ready to walk onstage and perform, they still aren’t saying much of anything. Just before they walk out, Lup turns to Barry, smiles, and says, "Let's knock 'em dead, nerd."

And then they walk out on to the stage. And Lup holds her violin against her chin, looks to Barry, and smiles. The second the two of them start to play, the rest of the world melts away. Lup can't see anything else; not in the sense that everything has faded into nothing, but in the sense that suddenly nothing else is as important as Barry. They are in perfect harmony, and Lup can feel it in her stomach. Fire is her preferred element, so she's happy when she realizes that Barry feels like a fire in her gut. He is warm, he is bright, and he is beautiful. It feels like hours, or maybe just an instant, but then they're done playing.

Maybe the audience is cheering, maybe people are in tears, but Lup can't tell. She barely notices the brief second the Light takes away the memory of the piece because she knows the piece wasn't the important part of what happened here tonight. She grabs Barry's hand, she does still remember she is at a performance, and pulls him into a bow as their performance is broadcast to the whole world. She bows and the audience goes wild and then she stands back up and she doesn't let go of Barry and he doesn't let go of her. And she's looking into his eyes and she sees the fire in them and realizes he can see the fire in hers. And she doesn't let go of him and he doesnt let go of her.


End file.
